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The exclusion of three key Railways players – Jaya Sharma, Nooshin Al Khadeer and Preeti Dimri – from the Indian women’s squad for the World Cup has disappointed the team’s coach, Vinod Sharma, who said quality had not been the criterion for the selection.”I am not saying that our players should be selected. I only want the best Indian team to go for the World Cup.” Sharma told the . “I can’t answer the girls when they ask me why they were not picked despite good performances.” Spinners Dimri and Al Khadeer, along with opening batsman Jaya, were overlooked while youngsters Harmanpreet Kaur, Sravnathi Naidu and Poonam Raut got call-ups.Shubhangi Kulkarni, the convenor of the women’s selection panel, said the squad had been picked keeping fielding abilities in mind. But Sharma said Al Khadeer, an offspinner, was a good fielder.Al Khadeer herself was very disappointed and said the exclusion had been unexpected. “I couldn’t have been dropped based on my performance in Australia, where, though I took only three wickets in five games, I was India’s highest wicket-taker,” Al Khadeer told Cricinfo. “I don’t think there are any issues with my fielding either. I also have had a good domestic season so far. I really don’t know what the selectors had in mind while picking the squad and while I am disappointed I am not going to argue about their decisions.”Sharma was also surprised at Jaya’s omission. “It is unfair to bring raw players who will be playing their first international.” Jaya was also not sure why she had not made the cut. “I had injured my shoulder after the England series but had been cleared to play after that for the Challengers and the Australia series,” Jaya said. “I can’t really say why I was left out. I did have some problem while throwing the ball and had been advised two to three weeks of rehab.”The World Cup is a month away and really it was just a matter of time for me to recover. Since I was playing domestic cricket for two to three months, I could not concentrate on the rehab. But I haven’t been given a clear picture of why I was left out. Now I will go to the NCA for some rehab work before going back to the domestic season.”Sharma said Dimri had been a leading bowler during the domestic season. In the inter-zone one-dayers in December, Dimri took eight wickets at 13.75 from four games, including 4 for 30 against South Zone. “It is a shame that her claim has been overlooked.”

Peter Moores has turned down the opportunity to deny the scale of the rift that has formed between him and England’s captain, Kevin Pietersen, following the exclusion of Pietersen’s predecessor, Michael Vaughan, from next month’s tour of the Caribbean.Moores, whose methods have been criticised by Pietersen since the day he took over the captaincy in August, could be forced out of his job before the teams depart for the West Indies, as the ECB’s director of cricket, Hugh Morris, steps in to arbitrate in the escalating row.Speaking briefly to The Sun, Moores was given the opportunity to play down the seriousness of the row, but instead stated: “I hope you understand that I can’t really comment at this stage. I think I’ll take a rain-check on that.”Pietersen has reportedly said he will resign the captaincy if he is not allowed to have his own way, and when Moores was asked if he could continue to work alongside the captain, he responded: “No comment”.

Mitchell Johnson’s confidence in his place in Australia’s national sides has led to him seeking a spot in the 2009 Indian Premier League auction. While some of the country’s senior players are complaining about their workloads, Johnson will look to join most of his team-mates on the competition’s roster, although the Australians will be able to appear only if their tour of Pakistan is cancelled.A desire to secure his spot with the Test outfit stopped Johnson from taking part in the initial IPL intake, but he is now ready for more work. “Physically, he has become a lot stronger,” Johnson’s manager Sam Halvorsen said in the Age. “If they go to Pakistan they won’t be playing anyway, but in the event that they don’t … it’s an alternative he can handle.”Johnson switched to Perth from Queensland in the off-season to be with his girlfriend and is preparing for next week’s first Test against South Africa in his new home town. “I don’t know if you can call me a senior player but I feel a lot more comfortable and definitely know my role in the team,” he told the paper. “When you start out you are still working on your role but now I feel I have figured that out and I feel a lot more positive with my bowling.”I’m always backing myself now. I just go out and try to win for the team and do my best.” After making his debut against Sri Lanka in November 2007, Johnson has taken 61 wickets in 15 Tests and won a Man-of-the-Match award for his 9 for 69 against New Zealand in Brisbane.<BR clear="all"

Andrew Symonds has said he got “darker at the world” during Australia’s tour of India last year, when he was subjected to monkey chants by the crowd, and by his subsequent altercations with Harbhajan Singh, who was charged for racist abuse against Symonds earlier this year.Symonds was left out of the Test squad for Australia’s ongoing series in India on disciplinary grounds after he skipped a team meeting to go fishing ahead of the ODI series against Bangladesh, which his team-mates felt was one misdemeanour too many in a year when his attitude had raised eyebrows within the squad. He said the events in India and then in Australia had made him “physically tired and mentally worn down” by the end of the season.Recounting the events in his new book , Symonds said “some people in authority” during the ODI in Vadodara, where the monkey chants were first heard, were aware that it was getting out of hand. However, he said “others continued to hide behind the line that it was all a cultural misunderstanding and that the chants were merely celebrating the monkey god”.”One of our off-field team couldn’t hide his disbelief at this,” Symonds wrote. “The frustration levels in the camp were rising and I was conscious of contributing to the pressure on the team. It was another turbulent match. I was out for a first-ball duck. I trudged off, getting darker at the world by the second as monkey chants boomed out around Wankhede Stadium. Finally in the rooms, I said to myself: ‘Well, what the f— happened there?’ I wasn’t referring to the dismissal, more to the events that had led up to the game. It had become impossible to escape and I only hoped things might start to improve.”Symonds said things just got worse in the Indian innings. “Harbhajan and I locked horns briefly in the 35th over and that’s when he chucked the ‘monkey’ word at me. I didn’t have to be Einstein to work out what he was referring to. The word got around the team, but I had decided I really didn’t want to go any further with it. Frankly, I was sick of it and just wanted it all to go away.”India won the game, and afterwards the team had a brief discussion about whether a formal charge should be laid against Harbhajan. But I was keen to try to deal with it there and then and went along to their dressing-room and asked to speak with Harbhajan. I basically told him: ‘Look, the name-calling is fine with me, it doesn’t particularly worry me what you call me, but you know what is going to happen. One thing will lead to another and you blokes will end up going to an umpire and it will get out of hand’.”I said that the word he used was offensive and hurtful and he apologised and said it wouldn’t happen again. We shook hands and I said: ‘That’s the end of it’. As it turned out, Harbhajan would later deny this conversation took place, but my recollection is about as clear as I can be on the event.”Following the Sydney Test between the two sides earlier this year Harbhajan was slapped with a three-Test ban for making a racist comment against Symonds. His ban was overturned on appeal and Symonds said the hearing was not one of the most enjoyable days of his life. By the end of the season he said he was sick of cricket for all the wrong reasons. “I know some people might struggle to understand, but all I can say is that the stuff that wore me down was not the playing of the game. This time, it was feeling that I had been let down, or had let people down – or both.”

Brendon McCullum has been named New Zealand’s Player of the Year following a prolific season during which he starred at both international and domestic level. McCullum was given the award for 2007-08 at a ceremony in Auckland in addition to receiving the Walter Hadlee Trophy for one-day batting.Dion Nash, one of the national selectors and a member of the awards selection panel, said McCullum had earned the recognition not only through his explosive batting but also his first-rate glovework. “In the domestic and international one-day and Twenty20 competitions he outperformed everyone else,” Nash said.”Who will forget his 170 from 108 balls for the Otago Volts in the State Shield final or his 80 from 28 balls against Bangladesh in Queenstown? While his batting was breathtaking at times, so were some of the wicketkeeping catches he took. During a long and demanding season he retained his extremely high standards throughout, including the Test series against England in England.”McCullum’s year also featured one of the most memorable innings in Twenty20 history, when he kicked off the inaugural IPL match with a brilliant 158 from 73 balls. But despite his all-round success McCullum missed out on the new JR Reid Best Allrounder award, which went to Jacob Oram, who scored two Test centuries, three ODI fifties and collected 37 first-class wickets at 16.12The Walter Hadlee Trophy for bowling in one-day internationals went to Kyle Mills, who over the past year was making his return from a severe knee injury. Mills took 40 ODI wickets over the past 12 months, including a career best of 5 for 25 against South Africa in Durban last November.The Redpath Cup for the best batsman in first-class cricket went to Ross Taylor, who made his Test debut in South Africa late last year. Taylor’s maiden Test century came in Hamilton, where he helped set up a New Zealand victory over England, and he added another Test hundred in a losing side at Old Trafford.The Winsor Cup, for first-class bowling, went to Chris Martin. One of three players who appeared in all ten Tests during the past year, Martin collected 34 wickets at 30.64.Nathan McCullum was named the State Cricketer of the Year following an excellent all-round 2007-08 season in which he averaged 36.10 in first-class cricket and also picked up 17 wickets. The Young Player of the Year was Kane Williamson, who captained New Zealand to the semi-finals of the Under-19 World Cup in Malaysia.Nicola Browne was given the Ruth Martin Cup as the best batsman in women’s cricket, Helen Watson picked up the Phyl Blackler Cup for women’s bowling and Sara McGlashan was named Women’s State Cricketer of the Year. Richard Hadlee was also recognised for outstanding services to cricket and received the Sutcliffe Medal.

Cameron White was worn out and relieved at the end of his first Test. There had been no embarrassing two-bounce deliveries or savage treatment from the India batsmen, and he had proved to the team he would be of use during the remaining three matches.Despite the one wicket, White’s legspin exceeded Ricky Ponting’s expectations in Bangalore. He had zip, overspin and his control was surprisingly tight. However, White is an option for Australia rather than a long-term answer, as Ponting showed, using him as the sixth bowler in the second innings after Michael Clarke had a couple of spells with his part-time offerings.At the end of the match Ponting said Australia had missed a quality spinner on the final day. He was not downgrading White’s contribution, but being realistic. White is a batsman who bowls a bit. In his early days his characteristics – a blond, Victorian legspinner – earned him heavy comparisons with Shane Warne, but nobody believes he will develop into a world-class bowler. The team will be satisfied if he becomes a solid contributor.White will be happy if he can find a way to relax in the game’s most exacting arena. “I’m happy to get it out of the road and relieved the game is finished,” he said. “I felt under pressure the whole time and was pretty nervous the whole way through.”He said he was yet to feel that he belonged in the side and was appeared diffident over another opportunity in the second Test in Mohali from Friday. Tall, strong and multi-skilled, White is unsure when he speaks. He showed some belligerence with the bat in making 18 not out from 14 balls in the second innings and was composed with the ball, but before the match he was worried. What if his first ball bounced twice?”I guess they’re the things that make you nervous, thinking about the bad things, which is probably what you shouldn’t do,” he said. By the end of the game he had less reason to be fearful.White’s first wicket was the most fabulous batsman in the modern game. The worsening light was a distraction, but White tempted Sachin Tendulkar to drive and Clarke took the catch at cover.”I was happy with the way I bowled,” he said. “It could have been better, could have been worse. We’ll see how it goes.” The figures of 1 for 88 were an improvement on Warne’s opening effort of 1 for 150 against India 16 years ago, but White realises his career figures will be worse.

Over the past week he has learned to bowl fuller to the Indian batsmen, who are so strong off the back foot, and wants to increase his pace to cut down the time they have to play him. “I was trying to bowl a bit faster,” he said. “I looked at my speeds and they were in the high 80s, that’s probably as slow as I want to bowl on these pitches. I want to keep my pace around the 90 kph mark.”He expects India will go after him and will spend time with Ponting this week working out some more detailed plans to cope with the treatment. “I’m pretty sure they will probably do that the whole series, if I’m lucky enough to play,” he said. “They’re always going to try to be attacking – I’m the new spinner, and they’re trying to put pressure on me.”One area White is less concerned about is his batting. Australia’s untried middle order of Shane Watson, Brad Haddin and White chipped in during the opening Test and will need more useful stands over the remainder of the series.”I’ve always felt not as nervous, and a lot more comfortable and confident, in my batting,” he said. “I’ve never really had any dramas there.”I would have liked more runs in the first innings – the situation just got the better of me. I felt better in the second innings and it was nice to play with freedom. There was no second guessing, just going out and try to score at a run a ball.”

Neil Carter, the Warwickshire allrounder, has agreed a loan deal with Middlesex for the Stanford Super Series and potentially the Champions League in India.Carter regularly opens for Warwickshire in one-day cricket and could be used in a similar role by Middlesex, but his main position will be to cover for Dirk Nannes, the left-arm quick bowler, who will be back with Victoria.The said that Carter, who has gone back to South Africa for a short break, will join up with Middlesex on October 16.The Stanford Super Series starts on October 25 and Middlesex’s first match is the following day, against England, then their most important game is against Trinidad and Tobago – worth US$200,000 – on October 27.

Three one-day internationals against a struggling Bangladesh have hardly been the ideal preparation for an upcoming Test tour of India, but Stuart Clark says playing any cricket is better than none. The first two games in Darwin have been enormously one-sided, although Clark is just happy to get some game time in hot conditions two weeks out from their departure for India.”It’s been tough,” Clark said. “I won’t lie and say it’s been easy. It’s been tough because of the humidity. It’s part of playing cricket, it’s what the conditions are like in many places around the world where we play, so it’s something we really need to get used to.”Clark has had no matches under his belt since the Test series in the West Indies, which finished in mid-June. Seven overs in each of the Bangladesh games have started to get him back in the swing of international cricket and Clark hopes it is enough to mean that he is not too rusty in India.”It’s hard when you haven’t played for a while and you need to come back in,” Clark said. “Okay, the opposition haven’t been as good as they’d like to be, but it’s still a very good lead-in and experience for what’s ahead.”The postponement of the Champions Trophy left Australia with a hole in their schedule in the immediate lead-up to the India Tests, although a second practice game has now been organised. The bowlers must make the most of the warm-ups as they aim to acclimatise to the conditions, with none of Clark, Brett Lee or Mitchell Johnson having played a Test there.”We’re lucky enough to have all played cricket [there], whether it be one-day cricket, or IPL,” Clark said. “We’ll look at some sort of footage and draw on the experiences of the guys who did play there in 2004. We’re going a little bit early now, and make our own adjustments to conditions that aren’t like Australia.”The series is being played barely eight months after the end of India’s controversial tour of Australia, which featured a racism row between Andrew Symonds and Harbhajan Singh. Clark does not expect major fireworks on this trip regardless of whether Symonds tours, despite him being a “larger than life character”.”As much as what happened, people still love to see him playing cricket and people love playing against him and competing against him, because he’s that type of person,” Clark said. “The sides get on well, off the field especially. There’ll be a little bit of competitiveness … I wouldn’t have thought there’d be too much niggle as far as the nasty stuff.”Before Australia can completely focus on India they will aim to wrap up a cleansweep against Bangladesh. Clark said Australia’s batsmen would have to work hard in the seaming and swinging conditions if they batted first, although Bangladesh would need to lift to challenge Australia.”We expected stronger in the second game and they probably played a little bit better and we’re expecting the same thing tomorrow,” Clark said. “I’d like to see if we could do another number on them.”

“If we play like we played this week, we’ll beat Australia,” declared Kevin Pietersen, only minutes after becoming the fourth man in the last 30 years to win his first Test as England captain. If that seemed a tad of an over-reaction to a comfortable but unspectacular dead-rubber triumph, then it was merely an extension of the up-and-at-’em attitude that has revived English spirits at the end of a disappointing series. Pietersen has never stood on ceremony at any stage of his career, and this moment of victory was not likely to change that pattern one iota.”This is a very exciting stage, but a starting stage,” he said. “The key is to turn up to every single Test match like we turned up to this one. With the structures and the players we’ve got, the type of attack we’ve had in this game, the way we’ve gone about the game and the way we’ve been up for it every single day, and the emotions that the guys have come out with, it’s not far away from a perfect start. It’s the way we want to play our cricket in the future.”The fact that England have now slipped one place from fourth to fifth in the ICC Test rankings clearly has no bearing on the hyperactive thought-processes that Pietersen has been putting himself through in the week since he assumed the role of England captain. An arduous winter looms in India, followed by a springtime tour of the Caribbean and then a possible home Test series against Sri Lanka (IPL commitments pending). But Pietersen knows full well that there’s only one contest that really captures the public imagination, and as such, he’s wasted no time in firing the first shots of the 2009 Ashes.”I’ve been doing a lot of thinking over the last five days, and I’ve definitely done a bit of thinking about Australia next year,” said Pietersen. “Certainly, a lot more than I would have if I was a player. It’s about getting the structure right for a long amount of time so the players can feel comfortable and know their role, and deliver. I think that’s very important, over the next nine months, for the boys to learn their roles and deliver next year.”Quite what the Australians will make of Pietersen’s long-term ambitions remains to be seen – clearly they won’t consider his hubristic approach to be out of character. Nevertheless, there’s no doubt that England have hit upon a certain something in the course of this contest. The form and fitness of Steve Harmison and Andrew Flintoff means that England’s attack has been stripped bare and reassembled since the start of the summer, with James Anderson finally confident enough to play a starring role in his own right, and Stuart Broad finding his niche as the junior player in a five-man set-up.It is a formation that has the capacity to rattle a few opponents in the coming months, but not even Pietersen, surely, will be kidding himself that he’s found the answer to the England’s post-2005 malaise after one half-decent win. After all, when England last took on South Africa, in the winter of 2004-05, not only did they emerge victorious in a contest that was far more keenly contested than this one, they did so with a team that contained nine of the eleven men who went on to defeat Australia the following summer.How many of the current eleven can feel confident about their futures just now? Andrew Strauss’s first fifty of the series cannot mask another flaccid performance from a player who revived his career against the Kiwis, but who averaged 24 on the last Ashes tour and hasn’t gone big against any senior opponent since the Shoaib-less Pakistanis toured England in 2006. Ian Bell’s form has shrunk away since his 199 at Lord’s, while Tim Ambrose played this match with an expression as hang-dog as if he had already been droppedIn fact, aside from Pietersen, Flintoff and the version of Harmison that turned up at The Oval this week, there’s no-one else who can declare with any certainty that they will be in the team that opens the Ashes at Cardiff next summer. Nevertheless, Pietersen’s confidence was clearly contagious during the contest just gone. He hasn’t got long to formulate a squad that can live up to his ambitions, but his positive and aggressive outlook is a useful starting point.”It’s been a good fun five days, and I’ve got a real happy tiredness,” said Pietersen. “It’s about that excitement at the start, but I want to be a guy who talks to the players and they think: ‘Yeah, he really truly wants me to do well here.’ It’s important to have that relationship with your players and your coach where you really want to perform for each other, and you know they’ll do anything on the planet for you. It’s a recipe for success.”Pietersen was particularly pleased to see the pride and passion come flooding back into England’s game during this match, and for that he reserved a special mention for Harmison, who arguably hasn’t looked as enthused by international cricket since his blood-letting first morning of the 2005 Ashes at Lord’s.”Big Steve came back in after a time out and he was magnificent,” said Pietersen. “I said to Stevey, when I told him he was playing, I want you open, I want you to bowl fast and straight, and bowl like the old Steve Harmison. He said he’d do his best and his best was good enough.”He’s a huge player, absolutely huge, and we’ve seen this week how important he is for us,” said Pietersen. “I’m going to be looking after Steve as best I can, but also looking to get the best out of him as well. I think now he’s experienced international cricket again, which he loves, and with the smile he’s got now, I’m definitely going to get the best out of him.”Such is Pietersen’s confidence in his new-found leadership abilities, he added that he had even been trying to coax Harmison out of his one-day retirement. “It would be lovely to have him coming in first-change with the white ball, but you don’t always get what you want in life,” he said. Compared to that particular ambition, the Ashes might actually be a doddle.

IPL 2022 welcomes two new franchises and with them come a whole host of questions like how will they impact the tournament format?
This will not be the first time the IPL will comprise 10 teams – that already happened a decade ago. The BCCI confirmed in a release that the season will comprise 74 matches (instead of the current 60), with each team playing seven home and seven away games. That means the tournament is likely to revert to the format used in 2011.Then, the 10 teams were broken into two groups of five but were ranked on one consolidated points table. Each team played the other four in their group both home and away (eight matches), four of the teams in the other group once each (four matches, either home or away), and the remaining team in the other group twice, both home and away. A random draw decided the composition of the groups as well as who played whom across the groups once and twice.The last time more than eight teams played in the IPL was in 2013, when nine teams took part and played a total of 76 matches.ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Will it affect player retention?
The IPL has not shared any firm details of its retention policy with the franchises, but it is now known that there will be no right-to-match cards. It is also likely that a franchise will be allowed to retain a maximum of four players, with the local and overseas combinations yet to be ascertained.The two new franchises will then get to buy an equal number of players before the auction through a draft system, the same one that was used in 2016 when Rising Pune Supergiant and Gujarat Lions briefly replaced Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals.Will it impact the value of the eight original franchises?
Yes. The higher the amount the two new entrants bid for their franchises, the higher the amount the original eight will get if they ever decide to sell, like Delhi Capitals did in 2018, when Jindal South West (JSW) bought 50% ownership from the GMR group. At the time, the valuation of the Delhi franchise was pegged at about INR 1100 crore and JSW paid half that amount. So, it isn’t over for the people who lost out on procuring an IPL team on Monday. They can still buy a share of it from an existing franchise for lesser money and enjoy the perks of being an owner.According to one analyst who has been crunching IPL numbers since its inception in 2008, if each of the two new franchises had sold for at least INR 3000 crore, then each of the original eight would have had a minimum value close to INR 2500 crore. And the two new franchises have sold for much bigger sums: INR 7090 crore (Lucknow) and INR 5625 (Ahmedabad).Is there a downside to paying such huge sums of money to own an IPL team?
Paying these massive amounts to the BCCI means the new franchises will take that much longer to make a profit.There are three main revenue streams for a franchise: the central rights income (a share of media rights income and central sponsorship), team sponsorship and gate revenues. After the record sum paid by Star India in 2017 for media rights, each of the existing eight franchises earned close to INR 200 crore from the IPL’s media rights central pool. That is bound to get even bigger as a result of Monday’s events, potentially inching up to the INR 275-350 crore mark per season per franchise going forward for 10 years. All the franchises derive their main income from IPL’s central media rights pool.The new franchises will need to pay out their bid amount over a 10-year period. From year 11, each franchise has to pay 20% of its overall revenue as franchise fee to the BCCI.